30: 60: 80

Writer-performer Amy Conway’s new
piece takes the form of a verbatim performance of three interviews: one with
her mother, one with her grandmother, and one with herself. Headphones in her
ears, Conway plays the interviews to herself and acts out what she hears out
loud for our benefit, moving between three little stage sets whenever she
changes character to help distinguish the three different voices.

These are three warm, pleasant people, and it is enjoyable to spend time with them.

Conway’s performance is of a high
standard. She obviously knows her mother and grandmother very well, so her
performances of each have nothing of the “generic” quality we too often see when the young impersonate the
old. Instead, her mannerisms are personal and natural, from the relaxed
confidence of her extrovert grandmother to the slightly rigid warmth and
intelligence of her mother. Conway's impressions of herself are, of course,
reasonably convincing, and the slight disconnect between the version of her we
see when she is repeating her own words, compared with when she is speaking to
the audience directly, is a nice way of illustrating the distance created by
the theatrical device.

These are three warm, pleasant
people, and it is enjoyable to spend time with them. Their lives span an
interesting period of time, and there are a few nods to the ways in which
social roles have changed over the last 60 years. However, the play stops short
of providing us with any real revelations, and it’s because the format makes
this impossible. Conway's family are obviously happy and functional, which
means none of them are ever going to say anything that might upset anyone else
who might see this play – and that’s everyone who matters in their lives. The
result is three interviews in which the participants are willing to reminisce and
describe, but never do more than hint at anything negative. Indeed, on the one
or two occasions when something bigger looms, the production quickly shies away
again. The outcome is a play with virtually no conflict at all.

The finished production has presumably
been cut together from hours of footage into this hour-or-so, and it is a shame
this hasn’t been done with some kind of thesis in mind. The structure of these
three intercutting interviews could have been used to draw some sort of
conclusion, and the lack of an overarching narrative means the play never gains
a sense of universal interest. A play about three women, across three
generations, should have big themes: family, ageing, the changing role of
women, even. It should say something about all our lives. Instead, it is
content to simply be about these particular three people, and that is rather a
wasted opportunity.

Still, even if it doesn’t achieve
anything particularly grand, it is very pleasant to spend an hour with three
such lovely people.

Grace Knight is a playwright and occasional fringe theatre producer. As Artistic Director of Orpheos Productions, she has produced nine short films as well as her own stage play, which sold out its run at the Camden Fringe Festival.

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The Blurb

30:60:80 is a celebration of three lives, spanning fifty years with the women of one family and inviting audiences to consider the richness in their own maternal herstory.

When Amy’s grandma turned 30, she had three children and was thankful to finally live in a house with an indoor toilet. When Amy’s mum turned 30, she had a profession, a mortgage and was pregnant with her first child.